Bruyas was a benefactor to artists, and this is all I’ll say to you: in the Delacroix portrait, he’s a gentleman with a beard, red hair, who looks damnably like you or me, and who made me think of that poem by Musset... everywhere I touched the earth, an unfortunate man dressed in black came to sit beside us, a man who looked at us like a brother.16 It would have the same effect on you, I’m sure.

I’d really ask you to go and see, at that bookshop where they sell lithographs of ancient and modern artists,17 if you could manage to get the lithograph after Delacroix’s ‘Tasso in the madhouse’18 without great expense, since it would seem to me that this figure (by Delacroix) must have some relationship to this fine Bruyas portrait.
1v:2

They have other Delacroixs there, a study of a mulatto woman (which Gauguin once copied),19 the Odalisques,20 Daniel in the lions’ den.21

By Courbet, first, The village girls, magnificent, a nude woman seen from the back, another on the ground, in a landscape.22 Second, The woman spinning23 (superb), and a whole load more Courbets. Anyway, you must know that this collection exists, or else know people who have seen it, and consequently be able to talk about it. So I shan’t insist on the museum (except for the Barye drawings and bronzes!)24

The discussion is excessively electric. We sometimes emerge from it with tired minds, like an electric battery after it’s run down.

We’ve been right in the midst of magic, for as Fromentin says so well, Rembrandt is above all a magician25 and Delacroix a man of God, of God’s thunder and bugger off in the name of God.

I’m writing this to you with reference to our friends, the Dutchmen De Haan and Isaäcson, who have so sought and loved Rembrandt, in order to encourage you to pursue the researches.
1v:3

One mustn’t get discouraged about that. You know the strange and superb portrait of a man by Rembrandt at the La Caze gallery,26 I told Gauguin that, for me, I saw in it a certain family or racial resemblance to Delacroix, or to him, Gauguin.

I don’t know why, but I always call that portrait ‘the traveller’ or ‘the man coming from far away’.

That’s an equivalent and parallel idea to what I’ve already told you, always to look at the portrait of old Six. The fine portrait with the glove for your future, and the Rembrandt etching, Six reading by a window in a ray of sunlight, for your past and your present.27

That’s the stage we’re at.

Gauguin said to me this morning, when I asked him how he felt: ‘that he could feel his old self coming back’, which gave me great pleasure.28

As for me, coming here last winter, tired and almost fainting mentally, I too suffered a little inside before I was able
1r:4 to begin to remake myself.

How I’d like you to see that museum in Montpellier some day, there are some really beautiful things there!

Say so to Degas,29 that Gauguin and I have been to see the portrait of Bruyas by Delacroix at Montpellier, for we must boldly believe that what is, is, and the portrait of Bruyas by Delacroix resembles you and me like a new brother.

As regards setting up a life with painters as pals, you see such odd things and I’ll end with what you always say, time will tell.

You can tell all this to our friends Isaäcson and De Haan, and even boldly read them this letter, I would already have written to them if I’d felt the necessary electric force.

On behalf of Gauguin as well as myself, a good, hearty handshake to you all.

Ever yours,

Vincent

If you think that Gauguin or I have a facility in our work, the work isn’t always accommodating. And for the Dutchmen not to get discouraged in their difficulties any more than we do, that’s what I wish for them, and for you too.

Translation

Notes

Artwork

726 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 17 or Tuesday, 18 December 1888.

726 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 17 or Tuesday, 18 December 1888.

1. The Musée Fabre in Montpellier, a city about 70 km to the west of Arles, housed the collection of Alfred Bruyas. This wealthy collector had become known mainly as the Maecenas of Gustave Courbet. In 1868 Bruyas donated part of his collection to the Musée Fabre, and his bequest followed in 1876. The Bruyas Collection contains 142, principally French, contemporary paintings (including 17 portraits of Bruyas), 48 drawings and 17 bronzes.

Gauguin had visited the Musée Fabre in 1884 and had written about it in his Avant et après: ‘I made, as a young man, a journey to the south, and at Montpellier I visited that famous museum, constructed by and endowed with the entire collection of Mr Bruyas’ (Je fis, jeune homme, un voyage dans le Midi, et à Montpellier je visitai ce fameux musée construit et donné avec toute la collection par M. Brias). After describing the masterpieces on display there, including paintings mentioned by Van Gogh in the present letter, he goes on to say: ‘A good many years later I returned in the company of Vincent to visit the museum again. What a change! Most of the old drawings had disappeared, and everywhere in their place [were] the Acquisitions of the State, 3rd prize. Cabanel and all his school had invaded the museum’ (Bien des années plus tard, je revins en compagnie de Vincent visiter à nouveau ce musée. Quel changement! La plupart des dessins anciens avaient disparu et de toutes parts à leur place, des Acquisitions de l’État, 3e médaille. Cabanel et toute son école avaient envahi le musée). See Gauguin 1923, pp. 221-222.

Following Merlhès, as well as Druick and Zegers, we have placed the visit to Montpellier on Sunday, 16 or Monday, 17 December. The railway journey lasted 2½ to 3 hours, so Van Gogh and Gauguin probably travelled back and forth in one day to avoid paying for a hotel. On Sunday and Monday the museum was open to the public both morning and afternoon, on Thursday only from 9.00 to 11.00. Although Baedeker also says that the museum was open ‘to foreign visitors on other days as well’ (encore les autres jours pour les étrangers), it is less likely that Van Gogh and Gauguin took advantage of this opportunity. See Baedeker 1889-2; Merlhès 1989, pp. 227, 228 (n. 1), and exhib. cat. Chicago 2001, pp. 390 (n. 256), 391 (n. 258, 259, 265).

12. The small panel Van Gogh is referring to is The death and assumption of the Virgin (Montpellier, Musée Fabre). Ill. 2271. In those days it was still attributed to Giotto, now to the ‘School of Giotto’. See cat. Montpellier 1926, pp. 21-22, cat. no. 70.

In 1875 Van Gogh had copied this verse, with variations, in a poetry album for Theo. See Pabst 1988, p. 24, and letter 39, n. 3.

Gauguin included the last two lines in an adapted version in his letter to Schuffenecker of about 20 December 1888, in which he wrote the following about his painting Human miseries: ‘It is a woman. With both hands under her chin she is not thinking of very much, but feels consolation on this piece of earth (nothing but earth), flooded by the red triangle of the sun in the vines. And a woman dressed in black passes by, looking at her like a sister.’ (C’est une femme. Les deux mains sous le menton elle pense à peu de chose, mais sent la consolation sur cette terre (rien que la terre) que le soleil inonde dans les vignes avec son triangle rouge. Et une femme habillée de noir passe, qui la regarde comme une soeur.) See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, pp. 306, 527-528 (n. 320); cf. also exhib. cat. Chicago 2001, p. 194.

28. Judging by this passage, Gauguin’s recovery was accompanied by an improvement in the atmosphere in the Yellow House. Gauguin retracted his earlier resolution to return to Paris (see letter 724, n. 1) in a letter that must have been enclosed with the present one (as emerges from the closing lines of the quotation): ‘Please consider my trip to Paris as something imaginary and therefore the letter that I wrote you as a bad dream ... We have been to Montpellier and Vincent is writing you his impressions.’ (Veuillez considérer mon voyage à Paris comme une chose imaginaire et par conséquent la lettre que je vous ai écrite comme un mauvais rêve ... Nous avons été à Montpellier et Vincent vous écrit ses impressions.’ See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, pp. 301-302.

On 22 December Gauguin wrote to Schuffenecker, telling him why he had decided to stay in Arles after all: ‘You await me with open arms, I thank you for that, but unfortunately I am not coming yet. My situation here is difficult; I owe Van Gogh and Vincent a great deal and despite some disagreement I cannot hold it against an excellent soul who is ill, who suffers, and asks for me. Do you remember the life of Edgar Poe, who became an alcoholic as a result of grief and a nervous state? One day I shall explain it fully. In any case I am staying here, but my departure will always be at the back of my mind.’ (Vous m’attendez à bras ouverts, je vous en remercie mais malheureusement je ne viens pas encore. Ma situation ici est pénible; je dois beaucoup à Van Gog et Vincent et malgré quelque discorde je ne puis en vouloir à un coeur excellent qui est malade qui souffre et me demande. Rappelez-vous de la vie d’Edgar Poë qui par suite de chagrins, d’état nerveux était devenu alcoolique. Un jour je vous expliquerai à fond. En tous cas je reste ici, mais mon départ sera toujours à l’état latent.) See Merlhès 1989, p. 238.

29. Since late 1886 Theo had been dealing in the work of Degas. It emerges from a number of undated letters written by Degas to Theo (FR b1145-1152) that they kept in touch and that Theo visited Degas in his studio. See also Thomson in exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1999, p. 107, and Kendall 1999, p. 38.

Theo had probably written something about Degas to Vincent that was similar to what he wrote to his sister Willemien on 6 December 1888: ‘Degas is terribly pleased with Gauguin’s work. So much so that he even wants to go to Arles to visit him. “They are the happy ones!” says Degas, speaking of Vincent and Gauguin, “that is life”. I don’t need to tell you what that means, coming from the great Degas, who himself understands life in its fullness’ (FR b916).